Keeping momentum with an Online Community
When discussing social online communities on several
occasions I have heard ‘we have set up a community but no-one is using it!’ Of
course there is no way we could force people to use communities, but there are
certainly ways to gently nurture and encourage users to be
engaged in an online community. Having looked at various research pieces and from the
experience of having our own online community, below I have listed 5 ‘nurturing’
tips:
1.
Keep it
simple and make it easy to contribute: Don’t over complicate a community,
don’t set too many boundaries and don’t organise different levels and rules to
it. Keep it simple, state the purpose, keep the message straightforward and
allow people to contribute easily.
2.
Maintain
relevance: If people begin to see the relevance of why they are part of the
community and can identify the benefit they are getting out of it they are more
likely to be engaged. Ensure users understand ‘what’s in it for them’ before
the community has even started out.
3.
Never
expect 100% participation: Nielson (2006) identified the 90-9-1 rule for
participation inequality in social online communities. In summary he stated
that 90% of an online community are lurkers who never contribute, 9% of users
contribute a little, and 1% of users account for almost all the action. But
this doesn’t mean that lurkers are not engaged with the community they are just
using it in a less obvious way. So don’t get hung up on activity levels.
4.
Ensure
there is a business need before creating a community: If there is a
business need that can be supported with the set-up of an online community,
this automatically gives it is purpose and immediately people can identify with
that and engage, but if the need never existed then it is difficult to get
participation.
5.
Curate
relevant content regularly: Appoint a community manager who can oversee the
community and they can have the role of dropping in relevant content on a regular
basis, helping to build momentum and keep users engaged. Certainly don’t flood
the community with content and certainly not with irrelevant content, but
maintain a pulse and react to the community. If there is a lot of activity for example step
away and on lulls step in by dropping questions or content.
Nurturing an online community is a continuous activity and
remains until the community stops. I have only listed 5 tips here and there are
others, these are tips we have used with our own community and from research we
have seen that they are effective. Feel to share others that have worked for your online communities .....
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